Use the 20" Cinema Display as TV screen

[thebt]

I'm wondering if it would be possible to use my 20" Cinema Display as a tv screen?

Is there any type of convertor so that I can attach a cinch or scart cable directly to my display?

Because now there are already some lcd tv's on the market!
I want to have a lcd tv from Apple!!!

 

[jkojima]

Viewsonic makes a TV to VGA converter box. If you paired it with a VGA to ADC adapter, you'd have an Apple LCD TV.

Or, you could get something like EyeTV to attach to your Mac, to use the whole computer as a TV/ video recorder.

 

[RBMaraman]

Interestingly enough, I just saw something on TechTV this morning about using LCD screens as TV's. They said not to do it, mainly because the images from TV move so fast that the LCD screens can't keep up, causing the images to be extremly blurry.

I don't own any LCD screens, so I can't verify this. I just thought it was kind of interesting. Let us know how your TV images look!

 

[jkojima]

The newest generation of LCD screens have adequate response times for video, but I'll admit still not as good as the old fashioned CRT. Apple's Cinema Displays are among the best in the industry, and really the weak link will be not in the display but in the method you use to get the TV signal to that display.

Both of the solutions I recommended in my first post have drawbacks. For one, TV signals are relatively low resolution analog, and in converting that signal to digital - whether via TV to VGA to ADC or via TV to Mac (via USB or Firewire) to ADC, you're going to lose quality. Perhaps there are converter boxes out there for the newer digital cable systems, but I've yet to see one.

Really, using a Cinema Display as a TV would be just a novelty. You'd get better picture quality by purchasing an actual TV.